Food freshness notification from personal food inventory

ABSTRACT

A personal food inventory system (PFIS) allows for storage of food items in a personal inventory associated with a user account, as well as tracking of food items consumed by the user account. The PFIS is linked to an application for communicating between an account user and the PFIS items that are received into the personal inventory and items consumed or otherwise removed from the personal inventory. The PFIS is linked to one or more preferred vendors for easy entry of items into the personal inventory. The PFIS also provides recommendation of dishes the account user can prepare based on the personal food inventory and/or a vendor inventory associated with the preferred vendor. The PFIS further provides user notifications for items nearing their expiry date. The PFIS also provides notification to the account user regarding usage of the personal food inventory system by tracking consumption.

RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.15/143,393, filed Apr. 29, 2016, which claims priority to of U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/162,482, filed May 15, 2015, U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/162,490, filed May 15, 2015, U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/162,493, filed May 15, 2015, and U.S.Provisional Application No. 62/162,497, filed May 15, 2015, all of whichare incorporated by reference in their entirety.

FIELDS OF CLASSIFICATION

U.S. Classes 235/385, 437/127, 707/740, 707/802, 709/206.

BACKGROUND

In the United States, 33.79 million tons of food went wasted in 2010, ata retail equivalent of $161.6 billion. On a global scale, it isestimated that 4 billion tons of food is wasted each year, the U.S. percapita waste has increased 50% since 1974. Discarded food represents thesingle largest component of municipal solid waste reaching landfills,and it is estimated that 30-50% of food from supermarkets is thrown awayin the homes of people who purchase it.

Much of the food that is wasted is a result of people simply not knowingwhat food they have in their pantries and refrigerators, or not using itbefore the food goes bad. Since most households have hundreds if notthousands of food items, it is difficult for people to keep track ofwhat items they have, how long they have had them, and when they willexpire. In addition, many people buy items at the grocery store thatthey do not need because they do not realize that they have the item athome already and they don't have an easy way to check their inventory.

In addition, often people have plenty of food items in their householdinventory, but cannot easily come up with recipes that use just theingredients they already have. Today's consumers have many differentdietary concerns as well, from wanting to eat a low carbohydrate diet tofood allergies, and prefer to cook items that meet those concerns.

SUMMARY

A personal food inventory system (PFIS) allows for storage of food itemsin a personal inventory associated with a user account, as well astracking of food items consumed by the user account. The PFIS includesfood records for each food item in the personal inventory, as well asvarious information about the food items. The PFIS is linked to anapplication for communicating between an account user and the PFIS itemsthat are received into the personal inventory and items consumed orotherwise removed from the personal inventory. The PFIS is linked to oneor more preferred vendors for easy entry of items into the personalinventory. The PFIS maintains up to date records of quantities of eachfood item.

The PFIS also provides recommendations of dishes the account user canprepare based on the personal food inventory and/or a vendor inventoryassociated with the preferred vendor. The PFIS stores dish recordsincluding food item identifiers for ingredients in the dish, and uponrequest, determines a set of candidate dishes for recommendation to theuser based on the inventories. The candidate dishes are filtered andranked according to various user-supplied criteria, and are presented tothe user via the application.

The PFIS further provides user notifications for items nearing theirexpiry date. The PFIS stores freshness information about food items inthe personal inventory, calculates freshness days remaining, andprovides the account user a notification identifying any food itemsapproaching their expiry date base on the freshness information.

The PFIS also provides notifications to the account user regarding usageof the personal food inventory system by tracking consumption. Theaccount user can provide one or more consumption goals, the system candetermining one or more consumption trends, and the PFIS can provide theaccount user notifications via the application. Goals the PFIS can trackinclude nutrition-based goals, economic, and recycling goals.

FIGURES

FIG. 1 is a high level entity diagram for a food inventory-basedtracking and recommendation system according to one embodiment.

FIG. 2 depicts a system architecture of a personal food inventory systemcontroller according to one embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart depicting a computer executed method ofmaintaining a personal food inventory according to one embodiment.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart depicting a computer executed method ofrecommending dishes based on a food inventory according to oneembodiment.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a user interface for receiving arequest for a dish according to one embodiment.

FIG. 6A illustrates an example of a user interface for displaying aselected dish according to one embodiment.

FIG. 6B illustrates an example of a user interface for displayingexpanded selected dish information according to one embodiment.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart depicting a computer executed method of providingnotification of items nearing an expiry date according to oneembodiment.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a user interface for providing anotification to a user according to one embodiment.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart depicting a method of providing user notificationregarding usage of a personal food inventory system according to oneembodiment.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example of a user interface for providingnotification to a user based at least in part on one or more consumptiongoals and/or one or more patterns of consumption of the food itemsaccording to one embodiment.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION System Architecture

FIG. 1 is a high level entity diagram for a food inventory-basedtracking and recommendation system 100 according to one embodiment. Thepersonal food inventory system 100 includes, according to oneembodiment, a cloud-based person food inventory system 110, one or morepreferred vendors 120, a household 130 corresponding to an account, andat least one electronic device 140 for the household. The entities areelectronically connected over a network according to one embodiment. Theperson food inventory system 110 is preferably disposed remotely fromthe vendor system 120, household 130, and electronic device 140.

A cloud-based personal food inventory system (PFIS) 110 controls asystem and method for maintaining a personal food inventory,recommending dishes based on the personal food inventory, providingnotification of items nearing their expiry date, and providing usernotification regarding usage of the personal food inventory system.

One or more preferred vendors 120 also participate in the system, byselling food items for purchase by system users, transmitting messagesregarding transaction history, and providing food item information foritems purchased. The one or more preferred vendors 120 are “preferred”with respect to a specific user account, and are specified by the userduring the account set up process. Other specifics are included as partof set up according to one embodiment, for example, providinginformation about appliances available for use in food preparation, etc.Although only one preferred vendor 120 is shown, more than one can beselected by the user during account set up, or even added or modifiedlater.

A household 130 is represented by a single account in the PFIS 110. Thehousehold is the entity for which a personal inventory is kept, goalsand trends are measured, and for which recommendations are made. Ahousehold may include a single user or may link to multiple differentusers, but typically is understood as associated with an actual,physical household.

An electronic device 140 can be a mobile phone, laptop computer, tablet,desktop computer, etc. Embodiments of electronic devices, userinterfaces for such devices, and associated processes for using suchdevices are described. In some embodiments, the device is a portablecommunications device, such as a mobile telephone, that also containsother functions, such as PDA and/or music player functions. Portableelectronic devices, such as laptops or tablet computers withtouch-sensitive surfaces (e.g., touch screen displays and/or touchpads), are, optionally, used. It should also be understood that, in someembodiments, the device is not a portable communications device, but isa desktop computer with a touch-sensitive surface (e.g., a touch screendisplay and/or a touch pad). The electronic device 140 is used by a userof the PFIS 110 who has an associated account. According to oneembodiment, the device 140 has voice recognition functionality thatallows the user to easily remove items from the personal inventory byspeaking that a particular food item has been consumed.

The PFIS 110 includes several databases 160-166 and a PFIS controller155 according to one embodiment. Each database is implemented using adatabase management system and a data storage device; the databasemanagement system is a relational database management system, and thedata storage device is a disk or solid state storage device. A personalinventory database 160 stores a personal food inventory associated withan account for a user of an electronic device 140, and includesinformation specific to the account. The personal inventory database 160includes various tables to store a personal user inventory, food iteminformation, dishes and recipes, recycling availability information,food item consumption information, and other food item trackinginformation specific to the associated account.

The personal inventory database 160 includes the following tablesaccording to one embodiment: an account table that is specific to anindividual account, and includes stored information such as householdmembers, user names and passwords, preferred vendor information, etc.The database 160 also may have a user table, specifying which user orusers are associated with the household account.

The database 160 also may have a food inventory table that maps eachaccount to a food inventory, a list of food identifiers, and variousfood attributes. The personal food inventory for the account includesfood records that each have a description of a food item and a food itemidentifier. A “food item,” as used herein, refers to a single food oringredient. For example, a food item could be chicken, or mustard, orcarrots, or black pepper. Each food item is an entry in a tableassociated with the personal food inventory for the account. Forexample, food information for food items in the food inventory table(“food inventory” herein) can include: a record number, a FoodID, a fooddescription, various nutritional attributes, inventory quantity,consumption quantity, consumption units, consumption date, consumptionsource, vendor ID, transaction ID, vendor item ID, vendor account ID,purchase quantity, purchase date, item cost/purchase price, freshnessstart date, freshness expiry date, freshness days left, and freshnessthreshold. In other embodiments the possible food item information maybe less or more than what is listed here, and may model known food datatables. See, e.g., USDA National Nutrient Database for StandardReference, Release 27.

The global product database 162 includes all food items known to thePFIS 110, including food items across all of the plurality of accountsfor the various users. The global product database 162 includes thefollowing tables: food item table with the individual items listed, witha key corresponding to the unique FoodID. The global product database162 also includes a food nutrition table, with nutrition data for fixedset of nutrients, keyed by FoodID. Because the global product database162 spans multiple accounts, if food item information is not availablein the person inventory database 160, the global product database 162can be used to look up the information.

The dish database 164 includes the following tables: dish table thatincludes information about a prepared food item. Dish database 164 alsoincludes a list of <FoodID, measure> for each food in the dish andinstructions, with each dish also having its own DishID. The dishdatabase 164 also has a meal table, with a list of DishIDs. The dishdatabase 164 also has a meal plan table, with a list of <MealID,day/time>, and each has MealPlanID. The dish database 164 also mayinclude information about appliances needed to make the dish.

The recycling database 166 may include information on recycling optionslocal to the account user. The recycling database 166 may includeinformation as to how to recycle items not accepted by the standardrecycling in the area local to the account user. The PFIS controller 155is described in greater detail in conjunction with FIG. 2.

The preferred vendor 120 includes a vendor product database 175, apurchase database 180, and a card scanner 185 according to oneembodiment. The vendor product database 175 includes every food itemthat the preferred vendor 120 sells, and includes detailed informationabout each of those products, similar to the information listed abovefor the personal inventory database 160, but at the preferred vendor 120level. The preferred vendor product database 175 also may tie each fooditem to a bar code, QR code, vendor product code, or the like to helpidentify the unique food item in the vendor product database 175. Thepurchase database 180 tracks all purchases made at the preferred vendor120, with each transaction having a number, as well as information abouteach of the food items purchased, prices, date of purchase, etc. Thecard scanner 185 is a device located at the preferred vendor 120 thatallows a user to scan an associated card 170 that identifies the user asbelonging to the respective PFIS account. The user may scan the card 170at the card scanner 185 at the point of sale, for example.

The household 130 is the group of users associated with the account, andhouses the physical inventory 135 according to one embodiment. Thephysical inventory 135 includes the physical food items tracked by thepersonal inventory associated with the account for the household 130.

One or more electronic devices 140 are used by the account user, and runapplication 165 for allowing the user to interact with the PFIS 110. Theapplication 165 is provided to the electronic device 165 either directlyfrom the PFIS 110, or indirectly from another online source, such as anapplication store which received the application from the PFIS 110; ineither case the application 165 is downloaded to the electronic device140 for execution thereon; the application 165 may also be provided as anatively installed application in the electronic device 140. The one ormore electronic devices 140 optionally may include a scanning device 150(or camera), and an electronic version of a card 170. Alternatively, theuser of the device 140 may have a physical card 170. The account useruses the scanning device 150 or camera of the device 140 to capture barcode or other food item identifying information for entering or removingfood items from the account's personal inventory.

The application 165 provides the interface between the account user andthe PFIS 110 for all aspects of system functionality. For example, theapplication 165 provides all of the user interfaces described herein,for example as shown in FIGS. 5, 6A, 6B, 8, and 10. The application 165allows the account user to communicate with the PFIS 110, enter itemsinto inventory for the account associated with the user, remove itemsfrom inventory, get dish recommendations, provide user notifications,reporting functions, and the like. As a part of an initial system setup, a user may enter all of the food items in the physical inventory 135for their household 130 into the PFIS 110 via application 165. Theapplication 165 may provide various search, scan, and other capabilitiesto help ease the user's burden in this initial data entry. Theapplication 165 facilitates all of the user-facing functionalitydescribed herein. The application 165 also may request information formthe account user to assist in communicating notifications, etc., such asan account user's email address, cell phone number, or other contactinformation. In addition, as part of account set up, each account useris issued a card 170, that is associated with the user's account. Thecard 170 will be scanned at a card scanner (e.g., 185) at the vendor 120to identify the user as a user associated with the account. Using theaccount information from the scanned card 170, the card scanner 185 isconfigured to transmit to the PFIS 110 transaction information includinginformation about the purchased food items.

FIG. 2 is a system architecture of a PFIS controller 155 according toone embodiment.

The PFIS controller 155 controls the functionality of the PFIS 110, andis one means for so doing. The PFIS controller 155 includes systemmodules 190 and UI module 195. The system modules include the followingmodules, according to one embodiment. The modules are implemented ascomputer code executed by a processor. As appreciated by those of skillin the art, the operations and functions of the modules are necessarilyexecuted by a computer, and are not performed by mental steps in thehuman mind in any practical embodiment.

An account module 205 tracks various user accounts with the PFIS 110,and as data is received routes inventory information to the appropriatepersonal inventory associated with the account.

A food module 210 receives and tracks individual food items, andassociates food item identifiers with the food items for storage in thepersonal inventory database or product database 162, and is one meansfor so doing. If needed, the food module 210 can look up food iteminformation from various sources for populating the databases 160-166.

An inventory in module 215 receives and tracks a plurality of food itemidentifiers of food items purchased or otherwise received by an accountuser and a quantity of each food item for entry into the personalinventory for the account and updates the inventory, and is one meansfor so doing. All functions described herein as associated withinventory into the personal inventory are controlled by the inventory inmodule 215.

An inventory out module 220 receives a notification that at least aportion of a food item associated with the account has been consumed anda quantity, and updates the personal inventory, and is one means for sodoing. All functions described herein as associated with inventory outof the personal inventory are controlled by the inventory out module220.

A dish recommendation module 225 determines a set of candidate dishesfrom the dish database with ingredients comprising specified food items,ranks the set of candidate dishes based on various factors, and selectsone or more dishes for display to the account user, and is one means forso doing. All functions described herein as associated with recommendingdishes to account users is controlled by the dish recommendation module225.

A sponsor module 230 allows for promotion of specific brands or productsbased on an advertising or sponsorship model in which vendors and/orfood item suppliers can sponsor items for more prominent display invarious interfaces of the application 65, and is one means fore sodoing. All functions described herein as associated with sponsorship arecontrolled by the sponsor module 230.

A freshness module 235 calculates freshness days remaining for fooditems, determines food items in the personal food inventory with expiryapproaching, and provides notifications to the account user of theexpiring items, and is one means for so doing. All functions describedherein as associated with freshness dates, spoilage, and expiration offood items are controlled by the freshness module 235.

A nutrition module 240 provides and retrieves nutrition information,information corresponding to nutrition-based consumption goals, andaccepted nutritional guidelines for use within the system, and is onemeans for so doing. Nutrition may be used, for example, for thereporting functions described in conjunction with FIG. 9. All functionsdescribed herein as associated with nutrition are controlled by thenutrition module 240.

A recycling module 245 retrieves and provides recycling information,e.g., for storage in recycling database 166, and is one means for sodoing. The information may include information on recycling optionslocal to the account user, and/or information as to how to recycle itemsnot accepted by the standard recycling in the area local to the accountuser. All functions described herein as associated with recycling arecontrolled by the recycling module 245.

A goals module 250 tracks consumption goals associated with useraccounts, and is one means for so doing. Consumption goals can benutrition based, such as keeping overall fat content of the food itemsconsumed to 25% or below, or can be based on various non-nutrition goalssuch as low food wastage, lowest cost items, etc. All functionsdescribed herein as associated with goals are controlled by the goalsmodule 250. A trends module 255 tracks trends of consumption of fooditems by the account user, and is one means for so doing. All functionsdescribed herein as associated with trends are controlled by the trendsmodule 255.

A reporting module 260 provides reporting functions for the data storedby the PFIS 110 and provides notification based on, e.g., consumptiongoals and trends or patterns of consumption of food items, and is onemeans for so doing. Various reporting options are available via theapplication 165, as described in conjunction with FIGS. 9 and 10. Allfunctions described herein as associated with reporting are controlledby the reporting module 260.

A user interface (UI) module 195 controls the various user interfaces ofthe application 165, and is one means for so doing. The UI module 195converts data from the PFIS 110 for display to the user, andcommunicates user input in the application 165 back to the PFIS 110. Allfunctions described herein as associated with user interfaces for theapplication 165 are controlled by the UI module 195.

The modules described herein are merely exemplary, and more or fewermodules, or modules in other arrangements can be used in otherembodiments.

Process Flow

FIG. 3 is a flowchart depicting a computer executed method ofmaintaining a personal food inventory according to one embodiment. Themethod is executed by a cloud-based personal food inventory system(PFIS) 110. The method starts with storing 310 in the personal inventorydatabase 160 a personal food inventory associated with an account for auser of an electronic device, e.g., device 140. The database 160 isconfigured as described above with the various tables 160-166 to store apersonal food inventory, food item information, dishes that can be madefrom the food items, and recycling option information. In oneembodiment, an account can be linked to multiple users and devices. Forexample, the account can be associated with a household, and each deviceassociated with the household can be linked to the account. The personalfood inventory can be stored, for example, in a personal inventorydatabase 160.

Continuing with the example of a household, the personal inventorydatabase 160 for a household, e.g., 130, could include all of the fooditems included in the physical inventory, e.g., 135, of the household130 and associated with the household. For example, the physicalinventory 135 of a household 130 is every food item physically presentin the household. As a part of an initial system set up, a user mayenter all of the food items in the physical inventory 135 for theirhousehold 130 into the PFIS 110, e.g., via application 165. Theapplication 165 may provide various search, scan, and other capabilitiesto help ease the user's burden in this initial data entry.Alternatively, upon start up a user may chose not to enter current itemsin physical inventory, but rather start using the system as describedherein, and adding food items in physical inventory as they becomerelevant to the function being used, such that the personal inventorydatabase 160 becomes more accurate over time. For example, when a usergoes shopping, new food items get added into the physical inventory 135and the personal inventory. When a user consumes a dish, the user mayupdate items consumed from physical inventory 135 that were not yet inthe personal inventory. For example, the application 165 could display:“You appear to have eaten more apples than you had in inventory. Yourinventory said 0 apples, and you ate 1. Is that correct?” Following suchentry, the apple previously not in the personal inventory would beadded, and then removed and marked as consumed.

The personal food inventory for the account includes food records thateach have a description of a food item and a food item identifier. A“food item,” as used herein, refers to a single food or ingredient. Forexample, a food item could be chicken, or mustard, or carrots, or blackpepper. The food items that make up a food or dish are also known as theingredients of the dish.

In one embodiment, the personal food inventory may include otherinformation associated with each food record, such as various attributesof the food such as nutrition information, recyclable packinginformation, etc., quantity in inventory and quantity consumed, vendorinformation regarding the source of the food item, freshness and/orexpiration information, and the like, as described above.

Next, a plurality of food item identifiers of food items for input intothe personal inventory are received 320. The food items are added to thepersonal food inventory associated with the account.

The receipt of food item identifiers at the PFIS 110 can occur in avariety of ways, and the PFIS 110 supports inputs from a number ofdifferent sources. As expected, many users will purchase food items atretail stores. Each user is issued a card 170, which is associated withthe user's account. The card 170 could have a bar code or magneticstripe, or both, identifying the user's account. The card 170 is scannedat a card scanner (e.g., 185) at the vendor 120 to identify the user asa user associated with the account. Using the account information fromthe scanned card 170, the card scanner 185 is configure to transmit tothe PFIS 110 a list of the purchased food items and quantity purchaseddirectly For example, a message format for transmitting the purchasedinformation, can take the following form:

   <?XML version=1.0 encoding =”utf-8?>  <Header><MessageID>{1234}</MessageID><Action>httpd://pfis.com/UpdateFoodInventory</Action><UserAccount>9845323</UserAccount> </Header> <Body><Vendor>349095</Vendor> <PurchaseDate>04-14-15</PurchaeD ate> <FoodList>  <food foodid=”3939” quantity=”1”></food>   <food foodid=”345332”quantity=”2”></food> </FoodList> </Body> </Message>

The PFIS 110 receives the list of food items, along with the accountidentifier and adds the corresponding food items, food item identifiers,quantity, and all other information received about the food item to thepersonal inventory database 160.

In the example of an online vendor 120, a similar process is used in oneembodiment, except that a card is not scanned. Instead an accountnumber, user name and password combination, or the like is used by thevendor payment processing system to identify the user as associated withthe account, received via a point of sale device. Once identified, thevendor payment processing system transmits the food item information forthe items purchased to the PFIS 110 via the previously described API. Inanother embodiment, the information may not be sent to the PFIS 110automatically. For example, the vendor 120 may instead provide theinformation upon a request that includes the identifying accountinformation. The request could be immediate, such as a request by theelectronic device 140 at the vendor 120, causing the vendor to push theinformation to the electronic device 140, or could be later in time,upon a request with identifying transaction information for thepurchase. For example, a user could request the food item information beprovided by identifying to the vendor 120 a transaction identifier, andthe vendor in turn could provide all the information associated with thetransaction, including vendor item identifiers for each food item, apurchase quantity, a purchase date, etc. In some instances the vendor120 may provide partial information and allow the PFIS 110 to access avendor product database 175 that includes additional information aboutthe purchased food items.

In yet another embodiment, the food item information could be receivedfor an item taken out of inventory 340 of the PFIS 110 via anapplication 165 with an account for the user (or put into 320inventory). In this example, the application 165 displays to the userthe personal inventory, and the user can select an item consumed and howmuch, and that is sent to the PFIS 110 for updating the personalinventory. In some instances the system may recommend automaticallyremoving items, e.g., because they are expired, and the PFIS 110 createsa list of these items as candidates to be removed, and displays thislist to the user to confirm whether the items should in fact be removed.

Another way that items can be received into or out of inventory is viause of a scanner device (e.g., scanning device 150), e.g., at thelocation of his or her physical inventory 135. The scanner 150 wouldcapture a bar code, QR code, or other item identifying code, communicatethat to the application 165 to identify the associated food item andidentifier, in order to identify the product consumed. In oneembodiment, the card can be chip-enabled, and the scanner 150 or device140 can read the chip-enabled card. The user could then input thequantity consumed (or added), either via the scanning device 150 itselfor via the application 165. For any items that may not have bar codes,the manual entry described above could be used, e.g., in conjunctionwith an item look up for items commonly sold without bar codes, such asfresh fruits and vegetables. Alternatively, a mobile device (e.g., 140)could be equipped with the ability to use a camera on the device 140 tocapture the item information and perform the functions described aboveas being performed by the scanner 150, instead of using a separatescanner. In either input scenario, the user inputs the food item byscanning or otherwise capturing information identifying the food item,e.g., a bar code, QR code, SKU number, or other machine-readableidentifier of the product. These machine readable identifiers are thentransmitted from the capture device to the PFIS 110. An example messageformat is as follows:

  <?XML version=1.0 encoding =”utf-8?> <Header> <MessageId>{4321}</MessageID> <Action>httpd://pfis.com/UpdateFoodInventory</Action> <UserAccount>9845323</UserAccount>  </Header>  <Body> <ConsumeDate>04-15-15</ConsumeDate>  <FoodList>   <food foodid=”3999”quantity=”−1”></food>   <food foodid=”343532” quantity=”−0.5”></food> </FoodList>  </Body>  </Message>

Once received, the PFIS 110 stores the food item information that isspecific to the personal inventory for the account in a personalinventory database (e.g., 160), and may additionally store general fooditem information in a global product database (e.g., 162) correspondingto products across multiple users.

Once received, the personal inventory database is updated 330 with thereceived plurality of food item identifiers and purchase quantities foreach food item received for the personal food inventory associated withthe account, along with their associated purchase dates. For example, ifan item was not previously in inventory, the new quantity received wouldbe the updated quantity. However, if the account lists existinginventory of a food item, once the purchased items are received then thequantity of the item would be updated to reflect the prior amount plusthe purchased amount. As noted above, when there is more than one of thesame item in inventory, the PFIS 110 may work on a FIFO system thatmonitors only the oldest item, or may maintain separate food itemidentifiers for the items according to their different purchase orexpiration dates, or other distinguishing attributes. If any informationabout the food item is missing from the information received from thevendor 120, e.g., if the vendor lacked nutritional information or thelike, the food item could be cross-checked against the global productdatabase (e.g., 162) to see whether the global product database 162 hasany additional information about the food item. Since the global productdatabase 162 tracks items across multiple users, additional informationabout the food item may be available beyond that received form aparticular vendor 120. The process of updating 330 the personalinventory database can repeat each time items are added or remove frominventory

At some later point, a notification is received 340 at the PFIS that atleast a portion of a food item associated with the account has beenconsumed, or has expired. The notification includes the food itemidentifier associated with the consumed item and a consumption quantity.For example, a user associated with an account provides information thatan item has been consumed, e.g., by providing item information andproviding a consumption quantity. In one embodiment the user uses theapplication 165 to notify the PFIS 110 that a food item has beenconsumed. For example, the application 165 may have an interface for theaccount user to provide information about one or more consumed fooditems, such as food item, quantity or amount consumed, storage ofremaining portion (e.g., for items requiring refrigeration). The userwill need to inform the system if the food item is spoiled (e.g., andthrown away) rather than consumed (e.g., eaten) for proper tracking.

Again a scanner 150 or other electronic device 140 could be used tocapture information about the food product being removed from thepersonal inventory, or the item can be identified via the application165. In another embodiment, an automatic removal from inventory could beused for items that pass an expiry data for items known to the PFIS 110.In this example, once an item expires it is flagged for removal frominventory automatically, upon user confirmation.

The message passed to the PFIS 110 by the application 165 could followthe format above for removing items from inventory. In addition, thePFIS 110 may need to authenticate the sender of the message, e.g., byverifying the device 140 from which the message originated, verifyingaccount privileges (e.g., which members of a household 130 can modify anaccount, etc.). Next, the PFIS 110 traverses the message, e.g., to checkwhether this update is not already conflicted by another user of theaccount in a recent, predetermined timeframe (e.g., 10 minutes). ThePFIS 110 may start by identifying the last update to the account, and ifit is within the window (10 minutes) then compare the items included inthe update. If some of the items match (i.e., the same item is updatedby two users of the account), the PFIS 110 checks for redundant entry byasking the second entering user “User A just told us that the bananaswere used. Is this the same update as User A's?” If so, the PFIS 110doesn't update that item. If not, then the PFIS 110 does update theitem. If the update is received longer ago than the predeterminedtimeframe, then the PFIS 110 assumes that the update is new.

Then, for each item the PFIS 110 checks the personal inventory quantity,and subtracts from it the consumption quantity. If the personalinventory number is reduced to zero, the application 165 confirms thatto the user: “You have used all of the Bananas. Is that right?” In thisway, the application 165 and PFIS 110 work together to validate theinventory update. If the number consumed brings the total to below zero,there's problem. The application 165 could display: “You appear to haveeaten more apples than you had in inventory. Your inventory said 2apples, and you ate 3. Is that correct?” The user then could select aYes answer, or a No answer, stating that the update was an error, andinput the corrected consumption or inventory quantity. If the update tothe personal inventory is verified, then the consumed item is added tothe information about food items consumed.

In yet another embodiment, the notification received 340 may be based ona dish being prepared and/or consumed that includes various food items.In this example, the user may provide the information identifying thedish, e.g., via selection from dishes previously recommended, and thesystem can match up the food items associated with the dish forprocessing the associated portion(s) of food item(s) consumed. The PFIS110 can then have the user confirm the food items, e.g., by asking: “Didyou make this dish with all of the following ingredients?”, with a listof food items with checkboxes pre-checked. The user can then confirm orremove (uncheck) an item. If an ingredient in the list was not used, thesystem flags it and asks if it was skipped or substituted. Ifsubstituted, the system gives the user a way to select a substitute. Thesystem also may allow the user to add an item, and confirm the addeditem. Once this step is complete, the Dish ID can be sent to the PFIS110 to update the personal inventory for the corresponding food items.

In response to receiving the notification, the PFIS 110 systemautomatically updates 350 the inventory quantity of the food itemassociated with the received identifier in the personal food inventoryassociated with the account based on the consumption quantity. Thesystem also stores the updated inventory quantity of the food item inthe food record of the food item. In conjunction with storing thecurrent inventory information, in one embodiment the system also maystore the current and historical consumption quantities and otherinformation.

If the notification is received 340 at the PFIS 110 that a food itemassociated with the account has been fully consumed (e.g., eitherbecause the user communicates that all was consumed or the inventoryquantity minus consumption quantity is zero), in addition to the userconfirmation step above, the PFIS 110 prompts the user with recyclinginformation according to one embodiment. For example, if a user finishesa carton of milk, the system can provide information as to the abilityof the carton to be recycled in the user's standard recycling binaccording to local recycling procedures associated with the locale ofthe user's household 130. For example, the user may have enteredlocation information upon set up of the account with the PFIS 110, andthe recycle database 166 may include information on local recycling inthis example. In addition, if the item is not compatible with thestandard local recycling program, the PFIS 110 can provide the userinformation as to how to recycle the carton nearby, and also provide anotification mechanism for whether the item was recycled or not. Thisdata is added to the personal inventory database long with otherconsumption information, to use in reporting features regardingrecycling goals and the like, e.g., as described in conjunction withFIG. 9 below.

The stored information regarding purchase quantities, consumptioninformation, recyclable/recycled packaging materials, and the like canbe gathered and used for various reporting functions and to makerecommendations to the users regarding, e.g., how well the actualconsumption for the account measured up to nutritional goals for theaccount, as further described in conjunction with FIGS. 9 and 10 below.In addition to nutrition-based reporting and functionality, thereporting can provide information such as spending statistics forpurchases made, allergen information regarding the ingredients of foodconsumed, information about how much of the food item packaging wasrecyclable, etc. Reporting is discussed further below in conjunctionwith FIG. 9.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart depicting a computer executed method ofrecommending dishes based on a food inventory according to oneembodiment. According to the method, a plurality of dish recordscorresponding to dishes are stored 410 in a dish database, e.g., 164.Each dish record includes a list of food item identifiers of food itemsincluded in the dish. A “dish,” as used herein, could be an entrée, anappetizer, a side dish, or other food portion. Typically a dish is afood portion corresponding to a recipe. For example, a meal may becomprised of multiple dishes, each of which would have their own recipe.Thus, for each of the food items included in the dish, i.e., theingredients in the dish, the dish records would provide food itemidentifiers. The dish database 164 may be pre-loaded with variousrecipes, but also may allow the user to add their own recipes to thedish database 164, including making them available to other PFIS 110users, if desired. For example, if a user wants to add a specific dishto the dish database 164, the application 165 may provide an interfacefor doing so, including providing prompts for information about therecipe and whether to make it public or keep it private. Dishes madepublic are added to the dish database 164 that any user can access. Inone embodiment, the application 165 includes a recipe lookup function.

In addition, one or more food inventories are stored 420. The foodinventories may be personal, or associated with a preferred vendor, ordrawn from a combination of both. As described above, the preferredvendor can be more than one vendor according to one embodiment, if theaccount user has selected more than one preferred vendor.

According to one embodiment, a personal food inventory associated withan account for a user of an electronic device is stored in a personalinventory database as described above. As described above, the personalfood inventory may corresponding to a physical inventory 135 of itemsassociated with a user or household, according to one embodiment.According to another embodiment, one or more preferred vendors for anaccount for a user of an electronic device are stored, and a vendorinventory associated with the one or more preferred vendors for theaccount are accessible by the PFIS 110. For example, if User A lives ina small town, the user may set the preferred vendor as the local market,and may want to have the system consider the availability of items atthe local market in making recommendations to the user. The vendorinventory corresponds to a physical inventory associated with apreferred vendor 120, e.g., a particular retailer, store location, orwarehouse that houses inventory for the particular preferred vendor 120.In the case of a vendor 120 database, the user will want to apply one ormore filters to the dish recommendations, as described below. In thepersonal food inventory and/or the vendor inventory, a plurality of foodrecords are stored, and each food record includes a food item identifierand information describing a food item associated with the food itemidentifier as described above.

According to the method, a request from the user for a dishrecommendation is received 430, e.g., via a user interface associatedwith an application 165. According to one embodiment, a user interfacefor the application 165 can be viewed on a mobile device, e.g.,electronic device 140, or on any other computing device. The request maybe received 430 with various filters or criteria to apply, such ascalories, fat, carbohydrate limits or other nutritional parameters,avoidance of particular food items for food allergens, intolerances, orother food exclusions, cost information, availability in either or bothof the personal or preferred vendor inventories, constraints on therecyclability of the food item packaging, preparation time, freshnessinformation of current personal inventory items, number of dishes orservings desired, whether to include dishes included in priorrecommendations, or other criteria for the requested dish or dishes. Inthis way, the user can request a dish or dishes that are highlycustomized based on the user's particular needs, limitations, anddesires for the dish or dishes.

FIG. 5 illustrates an example of a user interface 500 for receiving sucha request according to one embodiment. In this example, the userinterface 500 includes a radio selector 505 for whether to use apersonal and/or vendor inventory as the basis for the dishrecommendations; a number of dishes to provide as recommendationsdropdown 510 a, a dish type as dropdown 510 b, and a meal time asdropdown 510 c. Other dropdowns could be used to help select the dish,e.g., type of cuisine (Chinese, Italian, etc.), preparation time, etc.Various filters 515 also can be applied. Here, six options are shown:<500 calories, low carbohydrates, nut free, no dairy, low fat, andgluten free. Other filters can apply according to various configurationsof the user interface 500, such as other areas of nutrition, variousfood avoidance parameters, freshness considerations, availability ofitem at local store, etc. An add more filters button 517 is selectableto allow the user to add additional filters if greater than thosedisplayed are desired, for example. Alternatively, the user can setwhich filters to allow as radio buttons during the initial system setup. In addition to the filters 515, the user can select by whatcriterion (or criteria) to rank the filtered dishes, via dropdown 519.One ranking criterion 519 is shown, however, additional criteria couldbe applied by the user, customized to weight them according to userpreference. Other examples of ranking criteria 519 include cost (withlower cost items ranked higher) and popularity of the dish (e.g., starratings on a 1 to 10 scale among the recipes). A prior recommendationexclusion dropdown 520 and/or a provide appliances needed dropdown 525are provided in some embodiments. In the user interface 500 shown inFIG. 5, a side panel 550 provides a set of other selectable aspects ofthe application 165 related to other user interfaces within theapplication 165. More or fewer filters and criteria 505-525 to apply tothe dish request can be used according to other embodiments. In anotherexample, the personal or vendor food inventory radio buttons 505 areomitted and the inventory that the food items for the dish will beselected based on is chosen by the user separately from the userinterface 500, e.g., as a setting or default for the user interface 500.Other criteria also can be applied that are not user-selected, forexample promotion of specific brands or products based on an advertisingor sponsorship model.

Returning to FIG. 4, next a plurality of food item identifiers areretrieved 440 corresponding to a plurality of food records, either fromthe personal inventory database associated with the user's account,and/or from the vendor database, e.g., depending on the radio selector505 if present. The plurality of food item identifiers retrieved 440 areselected based on the filters and criteria 505-525 applied, according toone embodiment. According to one embodiment, the vendor database 175 isaccessed directly by the system at the time of the request 430 toascertain availability of food items in the vendor database 175. Inother embodiments, availability of the items in the vendor database 175is retrieved periodically and stored in the global product database 162until requested. According to one embodiment, the system maps betweenfood items and specific brands of the item available at the preferredvendor 120.

Next a set of candidate dishes from the dish database are determined 450that include as ingredients the food items associated with the retrievedfood item identifiers. For example, by comparing the retrieved food itemidentifiers with food item identifiers included in the dishes in thedish database and a quantity of the food item in the dish, a set of bestmatch dishes for the retrieved 440 food item identifiers can bedetermined. In the example shown in FIG. 5, the dishes are filtered byentrée types and dinner dishes for two portions (510 a-510 c), andfurther filtered to only show those that are less than 500 calories, lowin carbohydrates, and gluten free (filters 515), and then the dishesremaining are ranked (519) by their calorie content, such that thelowest calorie items are shown at the top of the list. In otherembodiments, other ranking selection algorithms can be used.

As an alternative to the plurality of food item identifiers retrieved440 being selected based on the filters and criteria 505-525 per theabove step, the set of candidate dishes determined 450 can be the stageat which the filters and criteria 505-525 are applied, according to oneembodiment. Typically a user will choose whether to apply the filtersand criteria at the food item or dish stage during initial system setup, with the default being to apply the filters and criteria at the dishselection level.

According to one embodiment, the set of candidate dishes next are ranked460 based at least in part on a percentage of food items associated withthe retrieved food item identifiers included in the candidate dish. Inother words, the ranking 460 of the candidate dishes takes intoconsideration the food item identifiers present in the relevantinventory. For example, if the food item identifiers were retrieved 440from the personal inventory database, the ranking 460 is based at leastin part on the percentage of items in the dish that are present in thepersonal inventory database. Thus, the most highly ranked items, in thisexample, would be the dishes that, in addition to meeting any other ofthe criteria and filters, have the highest percentage of their items(ingredients) in the personal food inventory of the personal inventorydatabase. Likewise, if the food item identifiers were retrieved 440 fromthe vendor database, the ranking 460 is based at least in part on thepercentage of items in the dish that are present in the vendor database.Thus, the most highly ranked items, in this example, would be the dishesthat have the highest percentage of their ingredients in the vendordatabase.

Once the candidate dishes are ranked 460, one or more dishes from theset of candidate dishes is selected 470 for display to the user, withthe selection based at least in part on the rankings described above.According to one embodiment, the filters and criteria 505-525 areapplied at this selection stage, such that the dishes all are ranked460, and then the filters and criteria 505-525 are applied to theselection 470. Some filter criteria may be applied at different stages.For example, the specific quantity of dishes requested via dish quantitydropdown 510 and the selection of whether or not to exclude priorrecommendations dropdown 520 may not be applied until this selection 470step. In addition, foods previously recommended, even if removed fromthe list for some period of time, would recycle back in to the candidatepool eventually.

Once selected 470, an output interface is provided 480, includinginformation describing the selected one or more dishes. Selected dishesare stored in the personal inventory in order to build and maintain aprior recommendation list to prevent the system from continuing torepeatedly recommend the same dish. In addition, according to oneembodiment the display may show the user the number of dish choices thatcorrespond to each filter and criteria, e.g., allowing the user to seethat if they are shown too many dishes, they can add additional filtersor criteria, and if too few, they can see which filters are having thegreatest impact. An example is shown under heading 605 b in FIG. 6A.

In some embodiments, variations of the user interface can provideadditional functionality. For example, according to one embodiment, theuser can select a large number of dishes and use a calendar interface toset up meal planning. In one example, the user can receive an alert if afood item in a selected dish is not available at a preferred vendor.With this information, a user can select to add an additional preferredvendor 120, choose a different ingredient to substitute, choose a dishwithout the missing item, etc.

FIG. 6A illustrates an example of a user interface 600 for displayingthe selected 470 dishes and related information according to oneembodiment. User interface 600 displays two dish results 610 a, 610 b.In this example, the user requested two dishes be provided, and thefilters applied were low calories, low carbohydrates, and gluten free,and the ranking applied was low calories. The display order is thatdetermined during the ranking 460 and selection 470 steps, according toone embodiment. For each dish 610, the dish name, and filter informationis displayed by the user interface 600 using various headings 605 a-605c. Each heading 605 a-605 c is selectable, allowing the user to re-sortthe order of the dishes displayed, if desired. A get more dishes control615 is selectable to allow the user to add more dishes to the displayeddishes 610. Each dish 610 also is selectable for displaying additionaldetails about the selected dish 610.

According to various embodiments, additional information may bedisplayed in user interface 600. For example, selectable controls mayallow a user to get a recipe for a dish 610, a list of kitchenappliances needed to make the dish 610, a shopping list of food itemsneeded to prepare the dish 610, nutritional information for the dish610, etc. In addition, vendors and/or food item suppliers can sponsoritems for more prominent display in the interface 600, e.g., bysponsoring a particular food item that goes into a dish 610. In oneembodiment, the interface 600 indicates that the item is sponsored, asdiscussed in conjunction with FIG. 6B.

FIG. 6B illustrates an example of a user interface 600′ for displayingthe selected 470 dishes after selection of dish 610 a according to oneembodiment. User interface 600′ displays an expanded view 612 of dish610 a according to one embodiment. In this example, dish 610 a has beenexpanded 612 to display each food item and its quantity in the dish 610a, as well as the number of servings the dish 610 a provides, anddetailed per serving information for the applied filters. In addition,the expanded section 612 includes one or more selectable controls 620,625, e.g., for selecting to print the recipe 620 associated with thedish 610 a or to display or print a shopping list 625 associated withthe dish 610 a. In the instance in which the vendor inventory is theinventory used for retrieving 440 the plurality of food itemidentifiers, an additional filter is added by the system upon selectionof the shopping list control 625, that takes into account theavailability of food items in the personal inventory for the user andremoves them from the shopping list, according to one embodiment.

A shopping list is built by the account user over time according to oneembodiment, e.g., as items are consumed such that the personal inventoryfor the food item is reduced to zero. When this occurs, the PFIS 110prompts the user whether the food item should be added to a shoppinglist. In other embodiments, the shopping list is creased based on mealsrecommended and selected. According to one embodiment, the shopping listincludes information from the vendor 120, such as brands available,aisle locations in the store, prices, and other information relevant tothe account user when shopping for the food items. In this way, theapplication 165 also helps the account user in the process or purchaseplanning in addition to meal planning.

Also in this example, the expanded section 612 includes a sponsored item630 corresponding to a food item in the selected dish 610 a. Thisexample shows a coupon corresponding to one of the food items include inthe selected dish 610 a. The sponsored items may work as followsaccording to one embodiment. Take the dish chicken satay 610 a. The fooditems included are chicken breast and peanut sauce. However, there maybe many different brands of chicken breast and of peanut sauce. In theexample shown, a coupon is provided for a particular brand of chickenbreasts, and it is indicated to the user that it is a sponsored item. Inthis way, sponsorship may not affect the ranking of the items, but mayfactor into which brands are shown as available for purchase once a dishis recommended. In another embodiment, a sponsor may have an impact on afood item's inclusion in a recipe recommendation for a user, assumingall other user-specified filters, criteria, etc. are met.

According to one embodiment, the system maps between the ingredientsneeded for a dish and specific items/brands of that ingredient availableat the preferred vendor 120. When multiple items are available of thesame ingredient, the application 165 may provide various brands andtheir prices, so that the user can select the desired item and/or thedesired price. This aspect also assists the user in budgeting forgrocery shopping. This selection process also permits sponsored productadvertisement and/or providing of coupons.

FIG. 7 is a flowchart depicting a method of providing notification ofitems nearing an expiry date according to one embodiment. By providing auser with information about food items nearing their expiry date, themethod can assist the user in consuming those items so that less food iswasted.

According to the method, a personal food inventory associated with anaccount for a user of an electronic device is stored 710 in a personalinventory database, e.g., 160. As described in conjunction with theabove methods, the personal food inventory includes food records thateach include a food item identifier and information describing the fooditem associated with the food item identifier. In this method, the foodrecords also each include a freshness start date and an expiry date forthe food item. For example, the freshness start date might be thepurchase date in some circumstances, or it might be set by the vendor120 in other circumstances, or it might be the date that a package isopened.

The expiry date may come from any of various sources. For example, somefood items are sold with an associated expiration date. In thesecircumstances, the provided expiration date may be used, and may beprovided by the vendor selling the food item along with the otherinformation corresponding to the food item, e.g., in the messagecommunicated to the PFIS 110 upon putting the food item into thepersonal inventory. Likewise, some items are sold with a sell by date.In these circumstances, the expiry date can be determined based on thetype of food item in combination with the sell by date. For some fooditems, no date is provided, however, an expiry date can be calculatedbased on the type of food item, based on the purchase date.

According to one embodiment, the system tracks a total of five datesrelevant to freshness of food items: (1) purchase date, (2) open/defrostdate, (3) storage format change date, (4) best before date, and (5)consume before date. Of these, only (4) and (5) are of concern to theuser, however, the system may use all five dates for determiningfreshness information accurately.

In some circumstances, the vendor 120 provides the freshness dateinformation. In the absence of such information, the food database 162tracks each item with a high-risk or non-high-risk label. High-riskitems are those that might cause a health issue if eaten past the“consume by” date, such as meat, poultry, and dairy products.Information provided by the USFDA is a source of this informationaccording to one embodiment. If an item is considered high-risk, theuser would be prompted by the application 165 to input consume byinformation upon entry of the food item into the personal inventory.

For non-high-risk food items, the personal database 160 would storefurther information about storage of the food item, e.g., refrigeratedversus frozen, opened, etc. Each time the user takes an action relatedto the food item (e.g., opening a box), they would log that action inthe application 165. As a default the system assumes that the food itemis stored in the same manner as it is stored at the preferred vendor120, and the user would need to manually override this default if adifferent storage format is used.

According to one embodiment, the expiry date is triggered by a date onwhich the item was first opened, e.g., as measured by initialconsumption date. As items are added into the personal food inventory,e.g., via the method described in conjunction with FIG. 3, freshnessstart dates and an expiry dates are determined for the added items. Insome cases there may be more than one date associated with the freshnessof a food item. For example, for some foods, there may be a date pastwhich the food is no longer considered “fresh” but still is safe to eat,and a second date after which the food may no longer be safe to eat. Inaddition, some items, e.g., meat or chicken, may have a date thatcorresponds to a date by which the item should either be eaten orfrozen. In the case of an item reaching that date or otherwise placed infreezer storage, the account user could update that information in thepersonal inventory and a new freshness duration would be determinedbased on the length of time that the item remains fresh after freezing(e.g., before freezer burn sets in, etc.). In some instances thefreshness information is received from the vendor 120 with othertransaction information about the food item upon purchase. In othercases, a separate data source is consulted with information regardingtypical longevity of food items.

For each of the food items in the personal food inventory, the methodcalculates 720 a number of freshness days remaining between a currentdate and the expiry date for the food item. The calculated number offreshness days remaining also is stored in the personal food inventoryaccording to one embodiment. Alternatively, the system may have afreshness duration from which the expiration date can be calculated, andthen the days between the current date and expiration date are freshnessdays remaining.

Next the method determines 730 one or more food items in the personalfood inventory for which the calculated 720 number of freshness daysremaining is less than a threshold number of days. The threshold numberof days for an item may vary by item. For example, some foods may have amore strictly defined shelf life, after which it is not safe to eat,e.g., eggs or chicken, whereas other items may have a longer shelf life,e.g., crackers or canned items. The threshold thus can be pre-determinedor can be a default threshold per item according to one embodiment,and/or customizable by the user. In some embodiments, the threshold maybe a relative rather than absolute number, e.g., that 90% of an item'sfreshness days have elapsed. Some items may have multiple thresholds,for example, one for nearing the end of the freshness days, and one forhaving passed the freshness days (e.g., if the item is no longer safe toeat). In one embodiment, the freshness trigger for a particular fooditem is based on data provided by food scientists or establishedliterature regarding freshness, longevity, appearance, and other factorsimpacting food item quality.

In addition, different quantities of food items can have differentfreshness days remaining. For example, a user may purchase a loaf ofbread each week, even if not all of the bread is consumed. The breadpurchased first will reach its minimum threshold freshness sooner thanthe bread purchased the following week, and thus two differentthresholds can apply. In one embodiment, the PFIS 110 assumes a firstin, first out policy for multiple items of the same food. In anotherembodiment, each individual package is tracked separately. For example,a first milk carton might be associated with its earlier purchase dateand a second milk carton with a second, later purchase date so that theuser can tell the difference between the two items in the PFIS 110.Fewer redundant purchases should result from the user having theapplication 165 available at the point of purchase, and thus informationabout the personal inventory quantity readily available to assist withpurchase decisions.

Once one or more food items are determined 730 to have less freshnessdays remaining than the threshold for the item, the method provides 740a notification to the user, identifying the determined one or more fooditems as approaching their expiry date. Various notification types maybe provided 740 to the user. For example, a notification may be provided740 in the PFIS application 165, via an email, via a pop-up notificationon the user's device or computer, via a text message or other electronicforms of notification. Notifications may be provided to the user on anongoing basis (e.g., as items reach the freshness minimum threshold), aperiodic basis (e.g., once per week, once per day), or only uponrequest. These filters are applied when the notification is about to besent. For example, if the timeframe for notification is selected to beonly once per week, all notifications during the week would be held.Thus, the system default is initially set such that it notifies the useronce per day of items reaching their expiration.

FIG. 8 illustrates an example of a user interface 800 for providing 740a notification to a user according to one embodiment. In this example,two alerts 810 a, 810 b are provided, with each listing the food itemand freshness remaining. Each item is also paired with a control 815 a,815 b that allows each to be dismissed individually, and a separatecontrol 820 is provided to dismiss all of the notifications 810 a, 810 bat once. Another control 830 is provided in some embodiments to allowthe user to retrieve recipes that use the items subject to thenotification that they are reaching the end of their freshness. In thisexample, recipes can be ranked by which include the highest number ofitems nearing the end of their freshness. If several dishes with similarnumbers of expiring items rank similarly, the system can apply otherfilters such as those used for dish selection above, e.g., cost,calories, etc.

FIG. 9 is a flowchart depicting a method of providing user notificationregarding usage of a personal food inventory system according to oneembodiment.

According to the method, a personal food inventory associated with anaccount for a user of an electronic device is stored 910 in a personalinventory database of food records. Each food record stores variousattributes of the food items. For example, stored with the food itemidentifier and description may be nutrition information, recyclablepacking information, and various other attributes described above inconjunction with personal inventory database 160.

The method determines 920 one or more consumption goals associated withthe account. According to one embodiment, a consumption goal can benutrition based. For example, a nutrition-based consumption goal may beto keep the overall fat content of the food items consumed to 25% orbelow. Various other consumption goals can be applied, such as othernutrition-based goals such as low calories, low carbohydrates, glutenfree foods, or non-nutrition based goals such as low food wastage,lowest cost items, etc. According to another embodiment, a consumptiongoal can be based on non-nutrition factors. For example, a consumptiongoal could be related to how much recyclable packaging is used in theitems consumed, e.g., a goal of at least 60% recyclable packing for fooditems consumed. According to one embodiment, the system tracksconsumption on a per account basis. For example, upon set up the userselects a number of users for the account, e.g., corresponding to thenumber of people in the household. Thus, the nutrition, recycling, orother goals thus are household goals rather than individual user goals,as are the consumption trends.

According to the method, one or more trends of consumption of food itemsby the account associated with the user are determined 930. For example,by tracking consumption of food items, the system can monitor whichitems are consumed and determine trends in the consumption of the items.For example, if the user is spending more on food items than his budgetallows, the system can help identify the most expensive items or thosepurchased and not consumed prior to expiration. In the case of spending,for example, the use may be able to identify that high costs items arebeing purchased for a specific recipe. In this example, a database wouldtrack spending, and would identify anomalies based on differing levelsof spending on food items. Thus, the goal may be to identify a variancein spending.

The identified trends need not correspond to the consumption goals. Forexample, even if a user has not established a low fat diet as aconsumption goal, the system can identify if the user is consuming ahigh fat diet based on accepted nutritional guidelines, and thus canidentify the trend. For example, the system could consider the overalltotal of calories consumed for all food items for a given time period,and then consider how many grams of fat or how many of the calories camefrom fat, for example, and compare these numbers to establishednutritional guidelines for “low fat” diets.

The method also outputs 940 notification based at least in part on theone or more consumption goals and the one or more patterns ofconsumption of the food items. For example, various reporting functionscan be provided by the system. The reporting can identify, for example,how well the user is doing at meeting the consumption goal(s). Thesystem then also can provide recommendations to the user, either to helpbetter meet one or more consumption goals, and/or reversed anyundesirable trends identified. For example, in the case of a nutritiongoal, in addition to providing reporting on how well a goal was met,recipes can be provided to help the user better meet the goal.

FIG. 10 illustrates an example of a user interface 1000 for outputting940 notification to a user based at least in part on the one or moreconsumption goals and the one or more patterns of consumption of thefood items according to one embodiment. The reporting interface 1000shows three consumption goals 1005 in this example: Nutrition (1005 a),Recycling (1005 b), and Spending (1005 c). In the depicted example,Recycling 1005 b is selected. The user interface 1000 displays the nameof the goal 1010, as well as details about the goal tracking, such asoverall numbers 1015 and percentages 1020, as well as a measure of howwell the user is doing at meeting the consumption goals, as shown bymeasures 1025. One or more recommendations 1030 for meeting the goal maybe provided. In some instances, the recommendation is a selectablecontrol that can provide greater detail regarding how to better achievethe stated consumption goal. For example, for the goal of greaterrecycling, information can be provided about which manufacturers produceitems with greater amount of recyclable materials, which items cannot berecycled that the user may want to avoid, and offer alternatives toitems purchased by not aiding in the recycling goal, to name a few. Inaddition, one or more detailed recommendations can include selectablecontrols 1035 for providing greater information for meeting goals. Inthe example depicted in FIG. 10, the control 1035 is “find localrecycling centers” to aid the user in recycling efforts. A furthercontrol is provided to dismiss 1040 the recommendations. Differentcontrols and information would be displayed according to differentconsumption goals.

Additional Considerations

Some portions of above description describe the embodiments in terms ofalgorithms and symbolic representations of operations on information.These algorithmic descriptions and representations are commonly used bythose skilled in the data processing arts to convey the substance oftheir work effectively to others skilled in the art. These operations,while described functionally, computationally, or logically, areunderstood to be implemented by computer programs or equivalentelectrical circuits, microcode, or the like. To implement theseoperations, the data management service may use a non-transitorycomputer-readable medium that stores the operations as instructionsexecutable by one or more processors. Any of the operations, processes,or steps described herein may be performed using one or more processors.Furthermore, it has also proven convenient at times, to refer to thesearrangements of operations as modules, without loss of generality. Thedescribed operations and their associated modules may be embodied insoftware, firmware, hardware, or any combinations thereof.

As used herein any reference to “one embodiment” or “an embodiment”means that a particular element, feature, structure, or characteristicdescribed in connection with the embodiment is included in at least oneembodiment. The appearances of the phrase “in one embodiment” in variousplaces in the specification are not necessarily all referring to thesame embodiment.

As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,”“including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, areintended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process,method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is notnecessarily limited to only those elements but may include otherelements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method,article, or apparatus. Further, unless expressly stated to the contrary,“or” refers to an inclusive or and not to an exclusive or. For example,a condition A or B is satisfied by any one of the following: A is true(or present) and B is false (or not present), A is false (or notpresent) and B is true (or present), and both A and B are true (orpresent).

In addition, use of the “a” or “an” are employed to describe elementsand components of the embodiments herein. This is done merely forconvenience and to give a general sense of the embodiments. Thisdescription should be read to include one or at least one and thesingular also includes the plural unless it is obvious that it is meantotherwise.

Additional alternative structural and functional designs may beimplemented for securing and monitoring sensitive data. Thus, whileparticular embodiments and applications have been illustrated anddescribed, it is to be understood that the disclosed embodiments are notlimited to the precise construction and components disclosed herein.Various modifications, changes and variations may be made in thearrangement, operation and details of the method and apparatus disclosedherein without departing from the spirit and scope defined in theappended claims.

1. A method of providing notification of items nearing an expiry date,comprising: storing, in a personal inventory database at personal foodinventory system, a personal food inventory associated with an accountfor a user of an electronic device, the personal food inventorycomprising a plurality of food records specific to the account of theuser, each food record comprising a food item identifier, informationdescribing a food item associated with the food item identifier, afreshness start date, and an expiry date, wherein the personal foodinventory system is remotely located with respect to the electronicdevice; providing to the electronic device an application configured tocommunicate with the personal food inventory system to access thepersonal food inventory for the user; calculating by the personal foodinventory system, for each of the food items in the personal foodinventory of the user account, a number of freshness days remainingbetween a current date and the expiry date for the food item;determining, by the personal food inventory system, one or more fooditems in the personal food inventory for which the calculated number offreshness days between the current date and the expiry date of the fooditem is less than a threshold number of days; and providing by thepersonal notification system to the application on the electronic devicea notification identifying the determined one or more food items asapproaching their expiry date.
 2. The method of claim 1, wherein thethreshold number of days is a pre-determined number based on the fooditem type.
 3. The method of claim 1, wherein the threshold number ofdays comprises a first threshold number associated with a best byfreshness date and a second threshold number associated with anexpiration date, further comprising providing a second notificationassociated with the best by date.
 4. The method of claim 1, furthercomprising: receiving a plurality of food item identifiers of food itemsfor adding to the personal food inventory associated with the account;and updating the personal inventory database with the received pluralityof food item identifiers and purchase quantities.
 5. The method of claim1, wherein the determined one or more food items for which thecalculated number of freshness days is less than a threshold number ofdays are prioritized for inclusion in dishes recommended to the user inresponse to receiving a request from the user for a dish recommendation.6. The method of claim 1, wherein the account is linked to multipleusers.
 7. A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium storingexecutable computer program instructions, the instructions executable toperform steps of providing notification of items nearing an expiry date,comprising: storing, in a personal inventory database, a personal foodinventory associated with an account for a user of an electronic device,the personal food inventory comprising a plurality of food records, eachfood record comprising a food item identifier, information describing afood item associated with the food item identifier, a freshness startdate, and an expiry date; calculating, for each of the food items in thepersonal food inventory, a number of freshness days remaining between acurrent date and the expiry date for the food item; determining one ormore food items in the personal food inventory for which the calculatednumber of freshness days between the current date and the expiry date ofthe food item is less than a threshold number of days; and providing anotification to the user identifying the determined one or more fooditems as approaching their expiry date.
 8. The computer-readable storagemedium of claim 7, wherein the threshold number of days is apre-determined number based on the food item type.
 9. Thecomputer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the thresholdnumber of days comprises a first threshold number associated with a bestby freshness date and a second threshold number associated with anexpiration date, further comprising providing a second notificationassociated with the best by date.
 10. The computer-readable storagemedium of claim 7, further comprising: receiving a plurality of fooditem identifiers of food items for adding to the personal food inventoryassociated with the account; and updating the personal inventorydatabase with the received plurality of food item identifiers andpurchase quantities.
 11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim7, wherein the determined one or more food items for which thecalculated number of freshness days is less than a threshold number ofdays are prioritized for inclusion in dishes recommended to the user inresponse to receiving a request from the user for a dish recommendation.12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 7, wherein the accountis linked to multiple users.